


Totally Worth It

by LockePeter



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Canon Romance, F/M, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-06
Updated: 2013-05-06
Packaged: 2017-12-10 15:07:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/787410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LockePeter/pseuds/LockePeter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An expansion of the Tali romance scene from the end of Mass Effect 2. Dialogue from the first section credited to Mass Effect 2 writers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Totally Worth It

John Shepard, captain of the Normandy, hero of the Skyllian blitz, council spectre and (technically) freelance Cerberus operative, was Clean. The capital letter was entirely deserved, because he thought that quite probably this was in fact the Cleanest he had ever been in his whole life. His shower, where he had spent the last two hours, at this point might have fewer microbes existing in it than there were a couple meters away, in the vacuum of space. 

He checked the row of sprays, scrubs, oils, trimmers and other products that Mordin had supplied him with a couple of days ago, which were all very carefully annotated in the salarian's tight, precise handwriting.

He was down to the last one now, and he squinted through the lingering steam in the room at a label, murmuring to himself. The doctor seemed to regard punctuation as an optional concept intended for people with a lot of time on their hands.

"Contains oil distilled from certain dextro plant species native to Quarian homeworld traditionally members of species find scent pleasing wish you a safe and pleasant night Shepard."

Shepard chuckled to himself. As much as Mordin claimed to have no interest in sexual matters, he had displayed a particular enthusiasm to playing matchmaker when he admitted an interest in Tali. He'd delivered every single one of these packages discreetly through the ship's system of pneumatic tubes, along with an instructional pamphlet that was currently sitting in Shepard's bedside table. He planned to get to it once he finished the sterilizing, though admittedly he'd underestimated the time involved. The time and the amount of shaving he'd have to do. ("body hair. Potential disease vector ground.........problematic.")  
Shepard left the bathroom, considering the plastic wrapped set of clothes that had arrived at his door with a padding of stealthy amphibious feet and a self-satisfied chuckle this morning. Since he wasn't sure what Tali would be entirely comfortable with, he decided it'd be best to get them out and put them on. 

He was ready as he'd ever be, for both matters currently on his mind. He touched the comm near his desk.

"Joker? Plot a course for the Omega four relay." That action, the finality of it, made Shepard's heart race. No turning back now.

"You got it, Commander. Plotting a course for the Omega four relay, ETA about two hours. I'll let you know when we arrive." 

Joker didn't sound concerned. Shepard felt a little thrill of pride at the fearlessness he always sensed from his crew at times like this. 

Preparations finally finished, Shepard sat down on his bed and reached for the pamphlet.

"So...I've taken some antibiotics, as well as some herbal supplements that should bolster my immune system." 

Shepard turned, still holding the pad and suppressed a guilty expression. He was always amazed at just how quietly Tali managed to move around on those oddly jointed legs of hers. 

Seemed like the suit was still on, at least for now. He wasn't sure exactly what to expect in that regard, but he decided it might be unlikely that the pamphlet's "positions comfortable for both species" would prove to be necessary knowledge.

Of course, he didn't know that Tali had very carefully read up. It was a habit, and after all, the information had been presented in a very similar way to educational classes she'd taken aboard the migrant fleet. The diagrams had been somewhat different, of course. She'd had her own series of medications and treatments to undergo, but it didn't stop her from being nervous. For the first time in her life, her suit felt restrictive rather than comforting, her mask a barrier from something that she wanted, rather than something she was afraid of. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, stepping closer to Shepard a bit at a time. The datapad he was holding was between the two of them, so she took it from him gently and set it on the bedside table. 

"I...was going to bring music, but I didn't know what you'd like, and...I'm babbling like an idiot." She slid her hands up Shepard's arms, trying to keep her breathing steady so it wasn't amplified through the suit's microphone. No sense making her worries more obvious than they already were.

"It's ok. Come here." Shepard pulled her close, pressing his forehead against the front of her face mask. 

"I just don't want to....I want this to work. I've thought it over. I've minimized the risks. But I'm still nervous." Tali was starting to talk faster, backing away from Shepard. She sat down on the bed, shaking her head.  
"And that always makes me talk too much. It's a defense mechanism, and it's stupid, and...people who just see the helmet can't see my expression so I have to make it clear...what I'm..." She felt a pressure on the side of her face, making her stumble over her words. Shepard had reached up to the mask. She felt pneumatics hiss as catches clicked open.

"What I'm... feeling..." The mask lifted away. Shepard set it down on the floor.

Tali blinked, suddenly feeling the relatively cool air of the room on her face. It was the first time that Shepard had seen her real expression, beyond a softly glowing pair of canted eyes and the tip of a slim nose through the mask.

The eyes were as he remembered them, wide and tilted and utterly alien with their strange bioluminescence. With those eyes, he had expected something far more alien than he got. Guess you could count on evolution to run along similar roads if it found out they worked. Sure, her skin and lips seemed to have an almost purplish tint to them, and it seemed like her flesh had grown in segments, soft plates of skin that divided her face along the lines of her eyebrows, separating her forehead from the two halves of her face. 

She let out a little bit of breath, pausing a moment with her lips parted, on the verge of saying more. Without any more warning, she hit Shepard with both hands on his chest, knocking him backwards onto the bed and following him down. 

Her flesh felt warm, as if she was already running the fever that she had assured him she would definitely get after any sort of encounter like this. Or it was possible that Quarian body temperature was just a lot higher than a human's. Either way, his own flesh felt pleasantly cool to Tali, and her three-fingered hands ran over him while she kissed him hungrily, trying to capture all the exciting new sensations her face was feeling through her hands as well. 

Shepard was content to let her go at her own pace, eagerly returning her kiss and opening his mouth to her questing tongue, slim and oddly triangular. It was clear she'd never had high school to perfect the art of kissing, but he didn't mind. She more than made up for that with eagerness.

In fact, the whole concept of tongue kissing was entirely alien to Tali. To a modern Quarian, the extent of intimacy was linking the air systems in two suits together, and sexual pleasure was generally done through nerve-stims also installed in the suits. The idea was that it would feel like you were physically touching your partner without any need for the risk of real contact. Apparently the designers of the stim programs hadn't considered tongues as an option, she'd just read about it in her instructional pamphlet. 

She suppressed a giggle as their tongues slid against each other between joined lips, and doubted that many Quarian programmers had had much depth of experience in the actions they were meant to be simulating. That was not to say that she didn't have one of the stims installed in her own suit, which she'd used to....practice for this little liason several times in the last few weeks. 

Eventually, Tali broke off the kiss, leaving Shepard looking at her with a slightly confused expression. Something seemed to be frustrating the quarian, and she began to tug open Shepard's suit, running her hands over his neck and bare chest and stomach with small, frustrated noises. She leaned in close, lying on top of him, face pressed in underneath his jaw as she ran a line of quick, warm kisses against the side of his throat. Shepard put his arms around her back, one hand sliding down the curve of her hips, down her thigh. Though what he felt mostly was the mixed fabrics of the environmental suit, he squeezed her possessively, making a pleased growl.

"I think I can tell what you're feeling, Tali. You don't need to worry about that. And I feel the same way, I want this to work as much as-" 

Tali shook her head, putting a finger up to his lips. She sat back up, looking down at him on the bed.

"No, look. Look how easy this is for you." She tugged at his clothes more, sliding his sleeves down over his arms, exposing his entire torso down to his hips. 

"I can see you, I can feel your skin, I can be close to you. This is what I want, Shepard. The suit isn't me." She lifted his hands off her hips, stood up and took a step back from the bed, already grabbing at the redundant clasps that ran all over her body. 

"Tali, please. I want to be with you, but I don't want you to get hurt- if you take that off, you said you might die." Shepard propped himself up on his elbows, pushing off of the bed. He reached for Tali's wrist, but she took another step away, reaching a hand up to her collar.

"Yes. And we could all die the minute we pass through that relay, or in the collector base, or at any time while we're aboard this ship. I know that. I'm comfortable with that, there's no reason we shouldn't also be comfortable with...this." The section locks clicked, and Tali shivered as a cool rush of air entered the suit, starting from her throat and moving down her torso and over her legs. For the first time in her memory, the gentle pressure of the suit all over her body gave way as the garment depressurized. She ignored the blinking red warning lights at her wrist, slipping out of the arms and letting the top of the suit fall down over her waist. Moving quickly to keep herself from changing her mind midway, she pushed the rest down around her legs, finally reaching down to her ankles to step out of the boots. Tali only paused when she'd taken two steps back towards the bed, looking down for the source of the odd ticklish feeling on the soles of her feet.

"So that's what carpet....o-oh." She looked up, for a second just interested in sharing this fascinating piece of information with Shepard, and then realized in a moment of mixed giddiness and embarrassment that she was completely naked. Shepard smiled back at her, laying his own clothes down on the floor and straightening back up on the bed. 

"I am if you are, Tali. You're...." He stopped, completely at a loss for words. More beautiful than I could ever have imagined queued up for attention. Something different than anything I've ever seen, yet wonderfully familiar made its voice heard. He realized after a moment he was sitting there with his mouth hanging open, and Tali was laughing at him, sliding back onto the sheets beside him. 

"I'm who I've always been, Shepard. Not what you expected when you saw me in the suit?" She pressed against him, and he could feel the heat radiating off her skin before she even made contact, the pulse racing through her veins faster than any human's.

"It's a little different from what I've seen..." He ran a hand up her side, feeling the ribs that started so much farther down her stomach than his and continued right up into her neck. "But that's not a bad thing. It might just take a little getting used to, that's all." He cupped her jaw in his palm, kissing her again and pressing his body against hers. He felt the curve of her breasts against his chest, round and soft, with nipples slightly off center and without any trace of areola. 

"Well, we should get started, then. I....Shepard, this is amazing. I never thought I'd...I mean....look at us." She laughed a little more, some of the tension leaving her voice. 

She rolled him over again, more comfortable on top, exploring him with soft, warm fingers, kissing him everywhere she could reach. He returned the favor, finally able to feel and see the body that had always been hidden beneath the environmental suit. He looked up at her through the curtain of her dark hair, running his fingers up her calf, tracing out the shape of her strange, graceful reverse knees. He noticed the little callouses in odd places, the indents in her skin from where the suit had always held her, where components had rubbed against her skin. They were almost random in their placement, such an odd contrast with the way her fingers and palms felt, soft and delicate. 

Tali leaned back a little, cocking her head as she felt something new behind her. She reached a hand back, curiosity turning into a playful grin as she remembered the diagrams. 

"So....you'd like to try that. Why didn't you tell me, Shepard?" She slid off him to the side, her legs curled up. She left her hand wrapped gently around the shaft of his now completely erect cock, looking down at it with curious eyes.

She hadn't exactly had a good comparison for scale when she'd looked at Mordin's supplied diagrams and instructions, so she had initially thought it would be about the same as the Quarian sexual equipment she'd learned about. To be honest, she was a little relieved that it was somewhat smaller, and on top of that she didn't think those were the same sort of tendons she was told to expect on the sides and bottom of it. It was also a fairly nice shape, generally speaking, though she was studiously ignoring what was hanging underneath. She had of course seen them in the pamphlet as well, but the technical explanation was obviously off, and she decided she liked the way quarians held their eggs a little better. She'd have to ask him later if he laid whether he was fertilized or not, like she'd read some native earth animals did. 

(It is worth noting that evolution on Rannoch and Earth took another not-quite-parallel when it came to sexual reproduction. Even if their genetics had been compatible, a quarian and a human could have only produced a mixed-race child in a homosexual relationship.)

"Tali...I wouldn't ask you to...I mean I didn't..." Read the pamphlet. Dammit. Thought Shepard, the somewhat guilty look cut off by Tali deciding to try a little bit of experimental squeezing and stroking. Despite his unfamiliarity with hands that only had three fingers, his body was definitely reacting favorably to the temperature and softness of Tali's skin. 

"No, you wouldn't. But you'd want to, even if we didn't." She leaned closer, her hand closed around the head of his penis. "And so would I. I want to go through that relay without feeling like I missed out on trying anything." 

Truth be told, she was still a little nervous about it, but she was fairly certain even though she was as new to this sort of thing as she was to being out of the suit at all, it wasn't going to hurt. She knew what her body had been built for. Tali pushed Shepard up off the bed, scooting back into the spot he'd occupied and resting her weight on one hip. 

"I...well, if you're sure, Tali." He watched her face, looking for signs of worry, and he put one hand down on her knee.

"I'm sure, Shepard. Our genes don't match up, it's not as if you're going to accidentally make me pregnant. I don't want anything between us." She smiled, spreading open her legs. It was the position most quarians are taught when they take their classes on the fleet. It didn't quite line up the erogenous zones perfectly, but it ensured that the female wouldn't be hurt when the male entered.  
Shepard looked down.

He'd seen a lot of alien worlds, and he was always surprised just how much more striking the difference was when you went down and saw something that was almost exactly the same as the Earth he knew except for one minor difference. It was the little things that always threw you off.

Like when you expect to see a sort of exclamation-point shaped arrangement between a lady's legs, and instead you're greeted with a division sign. There was one more orifice than he'd initially anticipated, and he was really only confident about the function of the bottommost one. Given that it was the one usually designated as no-fly space, Shepard executed a quick eeny-meeny-miney-mo judgement between the remaining two in question as he got closer to her. 

He maneuvered the tip of his penis opposite the topmost hole, and began to move forward slowly.

"Shepard...I want to feel you ins-Shepard!" Her voice started out as the low purr that he had liked so much through the electronic modulation of her suit, then quickly jumped an octave. 

He glanced down to see one of her feet pressing firmly against his chest, not letting him forward. No callouses, even on the soles of her feet. She was pointing to the bedside table.

"Shepard. Pamphlet." 

"Right. Sorry." He picked up the datapad, scrolling down until he saw a labeled picture. one of the terms in the key was 'Seperate urinary tract' and Shepard decided he probably didn't need to find the little number it corresponded to on the diagram to know where that was. 

Obviously he'd known there would probably be a somewhat different arrangement down there, but Shepard's only other xenophilic experience had been with the Asari consort, though that had been just as unexpected as this was, if more quick and businesslike. He'd read somewhere that the Asari seemed to be able to make their biology conform to whatever species they liked, presumably out of politeness and convenience, so he shouldn't have expected Tali to be the same way. 

"In here, Shepard." She reached down, guiding him along to the central area that, except for being rotated ninety degrees, looked somewhat more like a human vagina. It had lips fairly similar to those that framed her mouth, and seemed like when she spread her legs the opening straightened out from a half-moon curve. 

Shepard entered her, still moving slowly, and he was surprised at how easily he slid in. He looked down at Tali, who gave him a small smile with flushed cheeks. When she spoke, she tried to keep her voice even, but he kept moving around, in and out.

"Th-that's right....j-just like that..." Tali let out an involuntary gasp. He would press up against where her body wanted him to stay, sit still inside her and let her orgasm with him, but then he'd move out, and in again. She felt her insides shiver and tighten around him, trying to help him to reach the right spot.

For his part, it was certainly different from anything he'd ever done before. She just seemed to...move so much more in there than any human he'd ever been with. Her vagina would shiver, would pulse with every breath, every moan that escaped her lips, and very quickly he found himself joining her.

"Sh-shepard... I want you t- w-want you to..." Tali bit her lip, another moan interrupting her. She couldn't articulate that he needed to go in and stay, that he was meant to do something else, although as much as she knew he wasn't doing it like she'd been told it would be done, this felt amazing. She grabbed for the datapad, pulling her hand across it until it opened to the page listing the positions Mordin had mentioned to her. 

Shepard noticed the holograms light up, and pulled out as Tali turned herself over, her lips moving slightly as she read the quick blurb below the particular image she'd picked out.  
She rested on her hands and knees, looking back at him, that same expression sparkling in her eyes that she always had when she took something apart down on the engineering deck to find out how it worked. Of course, he'd never seen the devious little smile that went along with it until now. Shepard licked his lips.

"It says try pushing upwards this way..." She opened her legs up a little more for him, and Shepard put two hands on her hips, thrusting in a little more quickly now that he knew he wasn't going to hurt her.  
Tali very narrowly avoided crying out at the top of her lung. She regretted not checking whether Shepard's cabin was soundproof before she came in, and she would rather not hear the other engineers' comments on what was going on right now. Still....with every thrust, the head of his penis was sliding directly into the deepest part of her, and every time she felt the shiver within her of an orgasm beginning. But then he'd pull away, and her body would loosen up for a moment. It was incredible, but it felt like if she didn't manage to finish up soon she might go crazy.

After a few more minutes, Tali couldn't stand it. She pulled away, turned around and grabbed Shepard by the shoulders. She tossed him down on the bed, straddling over him. The pair of them stayed like that for a moment, panting.

"Hey...hey Shepard?"

"Huh?"

"Want some more?" Tali grinned, and pressed her hips down to his. She gasped, holding him down for a second, and it didn't take long for her to begin to come.  
Shepard yelled, partly out of surprise at the sudden motion inside her, and partly because the sliding, wet pulling of the quarian's orgasm drove him completely over the edge. He came with her, and was a little confused when he could still feel her moving, even after he had finished. Tali slid off of him, an expression of bliss on her face as she curled up next to him.

"Sorry if I'm not exactly... going to be babbling too much for the next....oh, half an hour or so..." Tali wrapped her arms around him, her legs twitching slightly at the thighs.

"Wow." Shepard put his own arm around her, as she rested her head on his chest. He chuckled. "Good biology."

"Mmmmhmmm..." 

"So I take it that went alright for you, then?" Shepard grinned, pressing his lips down into her hair.

"I will make it through this mission, Shepard. And you will too if I have to carry you myself. " She turned her head to look up at him, leaning in for one more long, slow kiss. 

"So you don't think you'll get sick?"

"If I do, it will be worth it. I'm not giving this up, Shepard. Any of it." 

Shepard nodded, leaning back on the pillow. It was a sentiment he shared himself, an unwillingess to give up what he loved, even if the fight seemed impossible.  
He held the quarian tight, until Tali finally stopped shivering and slid out of the bed, putting the suit back on before crawling back in with him. They laid together that way until Joker's voice pulled them out of their light doze.

Omega four.

They had arrived.


End file.
